Related Applications
There are no applications related hereto heretofore filed in this or any foreign country.
Field of Invention
My invention relates generally to horticultural hand tools to create a seed trench and more particularly to such a tool that creates a trench of adjustable depth at a spaced distance from an indexing indicia.
Descriptions of Prior Art
In the planting of seeds it is generally desired for both aesthetic and horticultural purposes that the seeds should be established in a lineal array of one sort or another. It is also generally desirable, and sometimes necessary, that seeds be established in a somewhat prepared seed bed to provide finely granulated soil thereabout and covering of the seeds to an appropriate depth to allow germination. Many seeds are quite sensitive to seed bed parameters, and particularly depth of soil coverage, to such an extent that their germination and subsequent growth during the seedling period is quite directly related to those seed bed parameters. These conditions have long been recognized in horticultural arts and responsively thereto many and various planting devices have heretofore become known at least partially fulfill the needs. The instant invention provides a new and novel member of this general class of device.
Seed bed preparing devices may be divided into two general groups based upon their function, the first class providing devices that establish a relatively small bed, for one or a few seeds to be placed in immediate adjacency, with each bed spaced from other beds and a second class of devices that are moved over and through the earth to create a seed bed of some substantial length wherein a substantial number of seeds may be placed in linear adjacency. The first class of device would be represented by planters for corn, beans or potatoes in hills or the like and the second group would be represented by planters to create elongate linear rows in a garden. Devices of each of these classes provide structure that is essentially related to their functions and are generally, therefore, quite readily distinguishable from each other on a structural as well as a functional basis. It is the second class of seed bed preparing devices that encompasses the instant invention.
Generally when seed beds are established in elongate rows, it is desired that the rows be lineal, parallel and substantially equally spaced. Undoubtedly aesthetics play some part in creating this desire, but the particular arrayal also tends to provide opptimum horticultural conditions for the growth and development of the plants involved. Seed rows are generally established with reference to some sort of linear indicia such as the periphery of a parcel, a pre-established physical structure such as a tight string extending between two supports or some pre-existing topographical features such as a previously established row or a contour line. My invention is particularly adapted to function with such indicia by providing adjustably extensible spacing guides extending laterally from either side to aid in aligning the device during its operation.
My invention further provides a ditch forming spade configured as a truncated equilateral triangle to create a seed bed at the bottom of a trench having similar cross-sectional shape. The trench forming spade depends from the medial portion of the body of my tool in an adjustable fashion so that a seed bed may be created by any particularly desired depth ranging through the limits of normal seed coverage depths. The trench forming spade is symmetrically positioned relative to the body of the tool to aid in maintaining the tool's lineal motion and to produce a berm of excavated dirt symmetrically on both sides of the trench being excavated, in distinguishment from prior art devices which commonly did not provide a symmetrically shaped excavating spade and commonly did not symmetrically position it. My tool is provided with an angularly extending handle to aid its manipulation through the earth by a standing user.
Various individual features of my invention have heretofore been known per se in one fashion or another and my invention therefore does not reside in any individual feature as such, but rather only in the synergesic combination of all features to form the entire tool as herein specified and claimed.